COURSES AND TEACHERS

EXPRESSIVE CONTEMPORARY DANCE

The expressive contemporary dance course focuses on the libidinal-anatomic wonders
and performatives. We explore the connections between one's subconscious milieu and
given movement techniques, to be experienced and articulated outwardly by the dancing
body. The course includes various exercises that sensitize the dancing anatomy, surfing
the waves of deep joy, libidinal connections, intuition, magic, absurdity, wildness, self-
amusement, liberation, and fantastical quirks. Dance emerges in various forms, meanings,
aesthetics, qualities, events, situations, and temperaments, both as a subjective and
collective force.

Elina Pirinen is the mother of daughter Ruusu and a cat named Irinja. She resides in
Helsinki and by the shore of Lake Kalliojärvi and works internationally. She is an acclaimed
dance artist, music creator, and lyricist. In her art, she seeks solace, hope, zest for life,
creative goofiness, secret and open affective connections with others, the weirdness
produced by the language of art, powerful and sensual openings of the body into nocturnal
and diurnal moods, like a placenta connecting to feminist libidinal flow and intelligence
through them. Pirinen's works have been performed around the world, most recently the
grand piece "Mortal Tropical Dances" at the Meteor Festival in Bergen in 2023. Her
international agency is Plan B.

Photo: Venla Helenius

EXPERIMENTAL VISUAL ARTS AND CRAFTS

The aim is to develop observation and problem-solving skills through hands-on activities.
We apply and combine various techniques from visual arts and crafts, explore form and
materials, and examine their properties during the course.

Jouko Korkeasaari is a visual artist whose stage name is Muotikummitus. In his art, he wants to question the absurd consumption habits of textiles and try new ways to extend the useful life of recycled clothes. This gave him the idea to create unique wearable works of art from surplus materials and flea market finds using different art and craft techniques under the name Muotikummitus (Fashion Ghost). He does everything himself, from designing to making the outfits, and finally documents the final results with a photo. Photodocumentaries form their own independent works of art that explore many overlapping themes such as alternative subcultures, art history, fashion and gender.

LANDSCAPES OF KANTELE AND VOICE

In this course, we embark on a musical exploration that you can join without any prior skills. However, if you have previously created music, the course offers an opportunity to see things from a new perspective. Our instruments on this journey are the kantele and our own voices.

We play what resonates within us in the moment, without demands. We let the sound of the kantele guide us towards meditative, calming, and enchanting landscapes. The course provides a space to pause and connect with ourselves and to encounter others through resonance.

We create various soundscapes and immerse ourselves in silence and embodiment to listen in new ways. Music paints the moment, silence, and movement, the eternal flow of life. What does it reveal to us?

Sarah Palu is a Finnish-French composer, musician, and music educator. Her instruments include the kantele, Celtic harp, movement, and voice. Palu's album "Ikivirta" has received an EMMA nomination and glowing reviews (RootsWorld, HBL, Global Texan Chronicles...), streamed over a million times on Spotify. Her compositions weave a path to the edges of conscious mind, revealing the unknown - our roots, inner world, and that which exists beyond time. Palu has worked as a musician and composer in various productions in Finland and abroad, actively involved in projects such as the Viitasen Piia ensemble in recent years.

Photo: Iiris Heikka

CREATIVE WRITING

In this course, we approach writing through observation, note-taking, and association exercises. We search for the sentence, internal editorial dialogue, and the idea of literary style. The body is the place of observation, and the mind is savage. Existence is constructed in coordinates, slowly undressing and covering oneself, bathing in the glow of strange lands. We feed it both sides of the moon. "I write so that the day becomes visible. I write into the mist from the sternum, and the essence of the mist expands. (...) The field and the animals blend with people and views. Movement is perfect: things move in each other's waves. Speech is difficult to hear and impossible to understand. Yet everything is clear and obvious. Forms disintegrate and constantly connect with each other. I write." (Maria Matinmikko: White)

Maria Matinmikko is an award-winning poet and prose writer. Her first three works, White (2012), Black (2013), and Colors (2017), form a literary ensemble. Kolkka (Corner, 2019) is a phantasmagorical, philosophical, and feminist verse novel. Valohämy – taide, maisema ja maailmanloppu (Chiaroscuro – art, landscape, and the end of the world) was published in the fall of 2023. The work also includes photographs taken by Matinmikko and drawings by the visual artist Sami Jalonen. An audiobook was also released, with sound artist J. Koho composing an electro-acoustic soundscape. Matinmikko is a member of the writing collectives of the Society for Possible Literature's novel Ihmiskokeita (Experiments on Humans, 2016) and the digital work Lähes tunnistamaton mahdollisuus menettää (Almost Unrecognizable Chance to Lose, 2018). Matinmikko's literature transcends genre boundaries, combining poetic, philosophical, and socio-political thinking in various ways. She graduated from the University of Helsinki with a Master's degree in Philosophy, specializing in aesthetics.

Photo: Ville Julius Blad

STREET DANCE / FREESTYLE

In these classes, we groove to bass-heavy music, dance, sweat together, and delve into our own ways of moving, feeling the dance, and the music. The classes are based on freestyle hip-hop dance, covering the history of hip-hop dance, party dance steps, and grooves. Additionally, the classes also cover the basic techniques and history of waacking/punking dance. The main emphasis is on collaboration, experience, and enjoyment.

Kaisa Nieminen is a dancer, choreographer, and rap artist. Her dance background is in street dance, mainly in hip-hop and waacking/punking. This background is evident in her artistic work and her relationship with movement. She graduated with a Master's degree in Choreography from the Inter-University for Dance Berlin (HZT) in 2019. Kaisa is a member of the rap group called Pimeä Hedelmä (Dark Fruit).

Her recent artistic works include pieces such as "Pimeä Hedelmä x Amanda & Lydia - the weight of being sexy," "Kaisa Nieminen & Marika Peura - down below things shudder," "Kemppainen, Nieminen, Peura - and then they left" (2021), "Rutimo Collective - Lemons" (2021), and "a dark post-midsummer night’s dream" (2021) in collaboration with the Pimeä Hedelmä band and the queer art duo Amanda & Lydia. As part of her artistic practice, Nieminen aims to reflect on her position, privileges, and responsibilities both within the hip-hop culture and as a white dance artist working in the field of contemporary dance.